Hello and welcome

I am just experimenting with this blog so please go easy on me! My name is Chris Whitelock and I am a professional horticulturist (not horticulturalist!) I am based in Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border and have a variety of jobs varying from training the staff of the Royal Horticultural Society and the Royal Botanic Gardens, writing articles for online publications and sometimes actually pruning. Pruning is my specialism, you have to think what you are doing and unfortunately this  is often carried out badly either by well-intentioned amateurs or people purporting to be professionals. To the novice, pruning can be scary, once a cut is made it cannot be undone  and the subject is sometimes made unnecessarily complicated in books and magazine articles.
I aim to take out some of the mystery and urban myths surrounding pruning. My knowledge is based on my college training but more importantly, decades of practical experience. Do not expect consensus between horticulturists, we all have our pet methods and techniques. learning why we prune and the effect of different pruning regimes on particular plants is more important than blindly following diagrams or verbal instructions.
There will be no order to my postings, this will depend on what I see in my travels, pruning work carried out and what new tool or accessory I have bought.

The picture is of a group of coloured stemmed varieties of Cornus (dogwood) and the colourful effect is achieved by hard pruning in the spring to stimulate new growth that will be colourful in winter. 

I am happy to answer questions (subject to time available) and I hope you will drop by from time to time.

Best wishes

Chris